(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt is highly unconventional for the Prime Minister to put down a confidence motion in his own Government, although I suppose he is an unconventional person, since only an unconventional man would want the opportunity to speak at his own funeral. Is not the essential problem that despite the litany of what he thinks are his fantasy achievements, the bottom line is that this country is supposed to operate on the good chap theory of government, but it does not operate when there is a bad apple at the core?
(2 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberI hesitated to say that to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford)—and he is my friend, Mr Speaker—but that is the fact. The Scottish contribution to our armed services is immense. Everybody knows it. It is a fantastic thing. It helps to make the UK what it is, and it would be utterly tragic for the whole world if the UK armed services were to face a division of that kind, or a loss of that kind.
When the Prime Minister was in Rwanda, did he meet the leader of the opposition, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, who spent eight years in prison simply for criticising the Rwandan regime? Did he speak to President Kagame about his continual policy of criminalising or assassinating his political opponents?
I did raise human rights concerns with President Kagame, and I raised issues of freedom of speech. I am sure that the hon. Member has been to Rwanda, so he will know that in 1994 the country underwent perhaps the most catastrophic, humiliating disaster that any country could undergo. Whatever the hon. Member may say about him, President Kagame has brought that country back from the brink and done an immense service to his country in restoring order, which his people value immensely.
(2 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes. I do not recognise the account that my right hon. Friend has given: we do not do free trade deals on that basis. Indeed, I can tell him that since we took back control, net immigration has gone down—[Interruption.] That is all the Opposition want—their answer is, everywhere and always, uncontrolled immigration. That is their approach to the economy, and it is not the right way forward. That is why our Nationality and Borders Bill, currently in the House of Lords, is so important—it will enable us to take back control of our borders properly and to tackle illegal immigration. What would be good would be to hear some support from the Labour Benches.
Five years ago, when the Prime Minister was Foreign Secretary, my constituent Luke Symons was taken captive by the Houthis in Yemen. Fortunately, the Prime Minister has a former Foreign Secretary sat next to him and another behind him, both of whom served in the last five years. Luke Symons is still in captivity in Sanaa, even though other nations—including the Americans—have managed to get their citizens released. Will the Prime Minister pledge that his Government will do everything they can to get Luke released from captivity in Yemen and arrange for the Foreign Secretary to meet my constituent, Mr Robert Cummings, who is Luke’s grandfather, to discuss how to go about doing that?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this case again. I remember it, and it is very sad. I know that our staff in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office work hard to try to release people from the positions they find themselves in around the world. Luke Symons is no exception, but I will certainly make sure that the hon. Gentleman has a meeting with the relevant Minister to report on the progress we are making.
(3 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the need to improve flood defences, which is why we are investing £2.6 billion in 1,000 flood defences in England in the next six years. The Humber estuary, the area he represents so well, is one of four areas that will benefit from trials on long-term ways of making all our country more resistant to flooding.
I will, of course, ensure that there is a proper meeting with the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on this subject, which is extremely important. I know that our friends in the EU will be wanting to go further to improve things not just for musicians, but for business travellers of all kinds, because there is a mutual benefit.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberThere have been very positive discussions with the devolved Administrations, including in Wales, about a joined-up Christmas, but can the Prime Minister do something about the terminal incontinence of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in continuing to leak the details of those discussions, undermining the trust and respect needed for those discussions to succeed?
What I can certainly say is that it does not help to read about confidential discussions in the papers. I must say that a lot of the stuff I have read seems to be very wide of the mark, but I am grateful to all colleagues in the DAs for the co-operation that they are showing in the work we are doing together.
(3 years, 12 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes, indeed. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady) if I did not understand his question, but we certainly can publish all the evidence that we have about the consequences for non-covid patients of failing to keep the autumn surge of covid under control. There is abundant evidence that overwhelming the NHS in the course of the next few weeks and months would do huge damage to people’s ability to access the services they need for cancer, for heart disease and for many other types of interventions that people need, in addition to covid. I would be very happy to share that with both my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West.
When SAGE advised a national firebreak lockdown, the Welsh First Minister introduced one, which my constituents are now undertaking here in Cardiff West. Given the Prime Minister’s statement today, does he agree that Mark Drakeford was right to act?
As I have said throughout this afternoon, I make no apology for doing my utmost to keep this economy going and to keep our kids in school, as indeed we are, and for avoiding the consequences of a national lockdown. The hon. Member will have heard the voices that have been raised across the House throughout this afternoon, both in favour of a lockdown and the many passionately against it. We have a very difficult balancing job to do—balancing lives, balancing livelihoods—and that is what we are doing.
(4 years ago)
Commons ChamberThe reality is that the disease is rising across the country. We have seen in other European countries and around the world that it sometimes rises fastest in one place rather than another. The sensible thing is to tackle it in a local way, which is what we are doing.
Between 27 September and 3 October, 89% of positive cases were reached by local authority public health tracing in Wales, but for the equivalent period just 74% were reached by the outsourced, centralised system in England. That is not ideology; that is just better virus-control policy to save lives. Test and trace needs trust to be effective. Does the Prime Minister now acknowledge that outsourcing the system was an error?
No—no more than getting a vaccine or test device from the private sector is an error. We need a mixture of public and private and of national and local, and that is what we are doing.
(4 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberYes. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in what he says about fusion research, where we lead the world at Culham, and he is right in what he says about vaccines and about hydrogen, and indeed we also lead the world in satellite technology, and of course he is completely correct in what he says about Sussex wines, which are the world’s—or among the world’s—finest.
The right hon. Gentleman is the captain of the ship of state as we navigate the perilous waters of Brexit, of covid and of civil unrest, and his priority is to rearrange the deckchairs of Whitehall. If this really is a merger, presumably— [Interruption.] I will allow him to chunter, and then I will ask my question. If this really is a merger, will the Secretary of State for International Development and the Foreign Secretary, both of whom are sitting on his Front Bench now, be applying equally for the new job of Colonial Secretary?
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the post of Colonial Secretary; I do not know quite what planet he is on. We are going forward with a single new Whitehall Department for international affairs, which I believe will add greatly to this country’s global throw-weight. [Interruption.] Opposition Members should applaud this change. It reflects what is done by the overwhelming majority of countries in the OECD—most of our friends and partners; indeed, all our friends and partners I can think of. We should get with the programme and support it.
(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberMy right hon. Friend raises a very important point, but it is one that is not unknown to the medical profession, and we will be relying on the clinical decisions of those medical professionals.
On the matter of “whatever it takes”, it takes more than three-word slogans, and in this case it takes a bit of war socialism. We need to get money into the pockets of the workers. Has the Prime Minister seen early-day motion 302, which I have proposed, about bringing in a temporary universal basic income to support workers and get money to where it is needed?
I hear the hon. Gentleman loud and clear. He echoes a point that was made by the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford). Of course, that is one of the ideas that will certainly be considered.